THE MEDIA BUSINESS

THE MEDIA BUSINESS; Recording Industry Lobbyist Plans to Leave Her Position

By LAURA M. HOLSON

Published: January 23, 2003

LOS ANGELES, Jan. 22—
Hilary Rosen, the music business's prominent Washington lobbyist and a vocal defender of the industry against online piracy and copyright infringement, said today that she was leaving at the end of the year.

Ms. Rosen, the chief executive of the Recording Industry Association of America, has in recent years been the industry's public face not only regarding its battles with legislators but with consumers and artists, too. For years music executives have resisted publicly defending their business practices to critics, leaving that largely to the association. As a result, Ms. Rosen earned the scorn of free-music zealots, who went so far as to make death threats against her, particularly after the association sued Napster, the song-swapping service, on behalf of the recording companies in 1999.

In Washington, Ms. Rosen has always been considered one of the most powerful entertainment lobbyists, representing the interests of a $15 billion industry and second only to Jack Valenti, the longtime head of the Motion Picture Association of America who is both feared and respected by peers. Ms. Rosen, a friend of Mr. Valenti, was a regular at the Clinton White House and was close to Vice President Al Gore and his wife, Tipper.

Music industry executives praised Ms. Rosen today. When she leaves, ''she will take with her our sincere gratitude, respect and admiration,'' said Roger Ames, the chairman and chief executive of Warner Music Group.

Ms. Rosen was a force behind several initiatives, including Rock the Vote, a nonpartisan voter-registration drive for young people, in 1992. But Ms. Rosen was an ardent supporter of controversial legislation, too, including the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which was passed in 1998 and bars the creation or distribution of technology that can be used to circumvent copyright protections on software, movies and music. Critics said the legislation placed a higher premium on intellectual property rights than freedom of information.

Ms. Rosen said today that she was leaving the association because she wanted to spend more time with her two children, twins -- a boy and a girl -- adopted in 1999 by Ms. Rosen and her partner, Elizabeth Birch, the executive director of the Human Rights Campaign, which is the nation's largest organization of lesbians and gay men. Ms. Birch said recently that she, too, was leaving her job at the end of the year.

Ms. Rosen said she had wanted to leave in 2001 but was enticed by music executives to stay for another year. Ms. Rosen is paid more than $1 million a year.

''I don't know what I am going to do,'' she said. ''I've been asked to sit on some corporate boards. I'm sure I'll look at other things. But for the next year, I will be focused here.''

She said the group's board would conduct a formal search for her successor and that Cary Sherman, the association's president, would remain in his position and help with the search. Mr. Sherman, a music industry executive said, was not interested in the chief executive's job.

Just who music executives can find to succeed Ms. Rosen is a matter of debate among many people in the industry. Ms. Rosen, according to industry executives, had a knack for managing the outsize egos of some of the industry's most powerful executives. But the new chief executive is inheriting an even more competitive business in turmoil. Worse, many of the troubles executives face are not with legislators in Washington but within their own corporate fiefs.

Compact disc sales are plummeting -- they were down 10 percent last year -- as executives grapple with how to distribute music electronically. Artists and producers are unhappy with the contracts music companies want them to sign. And every music company is struggling to control costs. Two weeks ago, Thomas D. Mottola was forced out of the Sony Music Group, a division of the Sony Corporation of America, in part because of steep losses there.

Even as a young woman growing up in West Orange, N.J., Ms. Rosen, 44, the daughter of the town's first city councilwoman, showed a taste for power-brokering. After high school, where she had been student council president, Ms. Rosen headed to George Washington University, hoping to become chief executive of a Fortune 500 company.

Instead, she joined the Recording Industry Association of America in 1987 as a lobbyist to help set up its Washington office, which was then being moved from New York. She was promoted to chief executive in 1998, roughly the same time the Internet began to explode and file-sharing became more prevalent.

Ms. Rosen said she did not expect to pursue a career related to politics despite her connections but instead conceded she might pursue something music-related. Ms. Rosen is a political commentator for CNBC. ''I love politics,'' she said, ''but it's always been a means to an end.''